Hanford to Perform Final Assessment Before Resuming PFP Demolition; West Valley Crews Mark Two Cleanup Accomplishments; Vacuum Enables Oak Ridge Crews to Remove Contaminated Sludge, Debris; and Much More!

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EM Update | Vol. 10, Issue 31 | Aug. 7, 2018

Hanford to Perform Final Assessment Before Resuming PFP Demolition
West Valley Crews Mark Two Cleanup Accomplishments
Vacuum Enables Oak Ridge Crews to Remove Contaminated Sludge, Debris
Contractor Collaborates With College on WTP Training Lab
Hanford Workers Prepare to Stabilize Waste Storage Tunnel to Reduce Risk
Savannah River National Laboratory Delivers Savings With 3D Printing
Testing Underway to Advance Hanford Basin Cleanup
Moab UMTRA Project's Lee Shenton Retires, New Liaison Begins Work

Hanford to Perform Final Assessment Before Resuming PFP Demolition

Plutonium Finishing Plant workers conduct full-scale dress rehearsals, or mockups, to train on enhanced safety controls and work procedures before demolition resumes.

RICHLAND, Wash. – EM Richland Operations Office (RL) contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation (CHPRC) and parent company Jacobs Engineering are set to conduct a final assessment Aug. 13-23 of the contractor’s readiness to resume demolition of Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP).

The management assessment will include an onsite DOE team and will determine whether CHPRC and Jacobs are ready to implement enhanced safety measures to control contamination and protect workers, the public, and the environment. Following this evaluation, any issues identified will be corrected prior to the contractor asking DOE for approval to restart demolition.

The final assessment comes after months of evaluations and preparations following a December spread of low levels of contamination that halted demolition. CHPRC and Jacobs produced a causal analysis, which is an extensive review of causes, and a plan for demolition. DOE reviewed both documents at the local and headquarters levels, and a DOE expert panel concluded the remaining demolition can be successful.

“The strategy to resume demolition of the Plutonium Finishing Plant includes input from workers, labor, and an independent DOE expert panel, and contains numerous safety and work control enhancements resulting from the root cause evaluation and other assessments,” RL Federal Project Director Tom Teynor said.

To reduce the amount of contaminated material at the Plutonium Finishing Plant by 90 percent (by plutonium content) before demolition resumes, workers removed more than 100 containers of debris that had already been packaged, including 20 large “super sacks.”

Hanford regulatory agencies also reviewed the demolition plan and recently lifted a formal stop-work order under Hanford’s Tri-Party Agreement to allow resumption of lower-risk demolition activities.

Demolition plans call for activities to occur in phases — lower-risk work, another management assessment, and higher-risk work.

The lower-risk work consists of removing demolition debris from around the Main Processing Facility (234-5Z), followed by demolition of the less-contaminated portions of that facility and an associated storage vault.

The higher-risk work consists of demolishing the remaining portions of the Main Processing Facility — two former plutonium metal and oxide production lines and the tunnels beneath — and removing debris remaining from demolition of the Plutonium Reclamation Facility in December.

The second management assessment, like the one to start next week, will incorporate worker feedback and lessons learned.

“PFP workers, union safety representatives, the technical staff, and project managers have done a great job developing this approach and identifying and implementing enhanced controls,” said Jason Casper, Jacobs PFP resumption manager. “I want to thank them for their partnership throughout this process.”

This July 2018 aerial photo shows the partially demolished Main Processing Facility of the Plutonium Finishing Plant at center. Blue areas indicate where workers have been spraying adhesive paint, called fixatives, over the past several months to prevent contamination from spreading.

Enhanced controls to prevent the spread of contamination include expanding radiological boundaries to include a larger area, adding monitoring devices in more locations, increasing the frequency of checking monitors for contamination, removing debris as demolition proceeds rather than letting it pile up, and following manufacturers’ recommendations on dilution when spraying fixatives. Enhanced oversight is also in place for work activities and any proposed changes to work packages.

More information about the phased demolition approach, including enhanced controls, is available at this website. The site includes employee communications, briefings, and other information related to PFP recovery and demolition.

-Contributor: Destry Henderson

West Valley Crews Mark Two Cleanup Accomplishments

Before and after: The West Valley Demonstration Project site's footprint is dramatically changed following demolition of the former administration building.

WEST VALLEY, N.Y. – EM recently marked two cleanup accomplishments at its West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) site as crews finished tearing down a former administration building and removed two large steel shield doors from the Vitrification Facility, marking progress toward its demolition.

EM WVDP Site Director Bryan Bower noted that the administration building teardown is a significant milestone even though it wasn’t the site’s most complex demolition.

“Our crews did an excellent job in their planning and safe execution of this demolition work,” Bower said.

Workers took four days to complete the demolition, finishing on Sunday. Work on the building’s concrete foundation will continue over the next few days.

Charlie Davis, Town of Ashford supervisor and a West Valley Citizen Task Force member, said completion of the demolition changes the landscape of the site and the community.

“It is a reminder of the hard work that’s being done to clean up the site and reduce its footprint for future generations,” Davis said.

Joe Patti, another task force member, said he believes the demolition signifies an end to an era.

“For more than 50 years, this building could be seen from the road by residents and visitors alike,” he said.

Built in 1963 and expanded in 1983, the nearly 10,000-square-foot structure was the oldest WVDP building. It housed communication and computer systems, along with offices for the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, DOE, the site's security, and the site’s prime contractor.

At the Vitrification Facility, the shield doors removed by crews together weighed 160 tons — the equivalent of 80 automobiles.

“The CHBWV team did an excellent job in their execution of this work evolution,” Bower said. “This allows our team to move forward on the final Vitrification Facility demolition activities.”

Jeff Bradford, president of CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley (CHBWV), EM’s cleanup contractor, said his employees used their combined knowledge and expertise to safely complete the challenging work.

“I’m proud of their accomplishment, and in the work they continue to do on this project,” Bradford said.

Crews use equipment to loosen and lower the 100-ton crane maintenance room shield door from the Vitrification Facility.

Heavy equipment lowers the 60-ton transfer tunnel shield door to the ground.

In early July, crews took out a 60-ton door between the Vitrification Cell and a tunnel that provided shielding for the equipment decontamination room. They used a hydraulic hammer to break concrete and rebar holding the 13-inch-thick door in place, and lowered the door to the ground in a large excavator bucket. Workers then used a burning bar to cut the door into three pieces for packaging and shipping for disposal.

Next, crews used the same equipment to remove the 100-ton, 9-inch-thick crane maintenance room shield door located 27 feet above ground. After removing the concrete and steel rebar, workers cut the tracks and cables to release the door’s mechanical grips. They lowered the door to the ground using the tip of the hydraulic hammer, and cut the door into four sections for packaging and shipping for disposal.

The Vitrification Facility, one of two such facilities to operate in the U.S., produced 278, 10-foot-tall canisters of vitrified high-level waste from 1996 through 2002.

-Contributor: Joseph Pillittere

Vacuum Enables Oak Ridge Crews to Remove Contaminated Sludge, Debris

EM now has a powerful, trailer-mounted vacuum for cleaning and maintaining the important liquid and gaseous waste operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – EM recently began removing contaminated sludge and debris from tanks, sumps, and valve boxes at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) liquid and gaseous waste operations using a powerful, new trailer-mounted vacuum.

The equipment has already enhanced safety and operational efficiency.

Without the vacuum, personnel would be required to fully dress in personal protective equipment and remove the sludge and debris with shovels and buckets. In addition to being closer to contaminated materials in confined spaces, workers would face an increased chance of slips and falls while climbing in and out of slippery areas in the protective suits.

Using the vacuum technology has eliminated the risk of heat stress for employees, who would otherwise perform manual labor in protective suits during the hot Tennessee summer.

The disposition of accumulated sludge and debris is important to maintain liquid and gaseous waste operations at ORNL. The waste treatment facilities are essential to ongoing operations of the nation’s largest multi-program national laboratory.

“We are constantly searching for new technologies that can advance our mission, and benefit our employees in the field,” ORNL Portfolio Federal Project Director Bill McMillan said. “This new equipment checks both of those boxes, and it’s helping ensure that we can maintain one of the most important EM facilities at ORNL.”

Accumulations of debris are often found during operations and maintenance of the facilities, and sludge is frequently encountered during tank cleanouts. EM expects to use the vacuum system during cleanout and maintenance of the facilities.

The vacuum trailer will also result in cost and labor savings. Prior to purchasing the equipment, personnel at the liquid and gaseous waste operations had to enter a tank and manually shovel sludge into a wheelbarrow and transport it to a waste container. This type of challenging labor will be avoided with the new equipment.

The new trailer allows crews to eliminate multiple steps by its unique ability to dump the sludge and debris directly into a dewatering box. The dewatered waste can then be placed into a waste container and shipped to an approved off-site disposal facility.

-Contributors: Michael Butler, Ben Williams

Contractor Collaborates With College on WTP Training Lab

RICHLAND, Wash. – Chemists are developing processes for analyzing Hanford tank waste before it’s turned into glass inside the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP).

The work is happening inside a 3,300-square-foot laboratory at Columbia Basin College (CBC) in nearby Pasco. WTP contractor Bechtel National Inc. (BNI) set up the lab at CBC so chemists and other specialists can train with the same equipment for the WTP Analytical Laboratory in support of EM’s plans to begin treating tank waste through its Direct Feed Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) vitrification approach.

“We are really in the phase where we are now starting that transition to operations, as so many people have worked for so long to enable us to achieve,” said Brian Vance, ORP manager. “This laboratory is another major step in the direction of moving from a focus on construction to operations.”

Chemists train at a local college laboratory with equipment that will eventually be transferred to the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant’s Analytical Laboratory.

While chemists develop the methods, processes, and procedures inside the college laboratory, work crews perform facility systems startup and testing at the Analytical Laboratory.

During the WTP’s cold commissioning phase, a waste-like simulant will run through the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) facility. Then a hot commissioning phase will begin turning low-activity waste into sturdy glass.

“We are in the early hiring and training phases for the laboratory technical staff that will eventually be transferred from the CBC lab to WTP’s large Analytical Laboratory at the Hanford Site,” said Brian Reilly, a BNI senior vice president and director for the WTP Project. “Through our work here at CBC, we are preparing the future workforce for the plant’s cold and hot commissioning phases.”

Dr. Rebekah Woods, CBC president, said it’s an honor to know that work supporting the Hanford cleanup mission is happening at CBC.

“It’s great that our campus can be a community resource for companies who are training the next generation of Hanford’s workforce,” Woods said.

The WTP Analytical Laboratory’s key function is to confirm that all glass produced by the LAW facility meets regulatory requirements and standards. The DFLAW approach is expected to allow treatment of low-level waste to begin by a court-ordered milestone date of 2023.

-Contributor: George Rangel

Hanford Workers Prepare to Stabilize Waste Storage Tunnel to Reduce Risk

Crews recently finished building roads to allow thousands of truckloads of engineered grout for stabilizing a waste storage tunnel.

RICHLAND, Wash. – As Hanford Site workers prepare to stabilize a waste storage tunnel at risk of collapse, crews are getting roads ready, setting up grout-mixing operations, and testing equipment and procedures using mockups.

EM Richland Operations Office (RL) contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) is preparing the site and mobilizing equipment to place engineered grout inside the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Tunnel 2. The 54-year-old tunnel contains railcars with contaminated pieces of plutonium processing equipment from PUREX placed in the tunnel beginning in the 1960s.

Following the May 2017 partial collapse of an adjacent waste tunnel, PUREX Tunnel 1, an engineering evaluation showed Tunnel 2 at risk of collapse. Crews filled Tunnel 1 with grout last year; grouting Tunnel 2 will prevent collapse of the structure and address the risk of another potential emergency situation.

“Stabilizing the tunnel is important to protecting workers, the public, and the environment from a potential spread of contamination,” RL Manager Doug Shoop said. “And filling the tunnel with grout will not preclude future cleanup decisions, such as removing the equipment encased in grout in the future.”

Workers recently tested the equipment for placing engineered grout inside Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant Tunnel 2.

Crews recently finished preparing roads and an area to mix grout. Trucks will bring in enough raw material to the site to mix the 43,000 cubic yards of grout needed to fill the 1,688-foot tunnel. The engineered grout is a mixture of water, cement, fly ash, and sand used to fill void spaces in and around the stored waste. This animation shows how pipes inserted into existing tunnel risers will place the grout inside.

“The entire project team has done a great job preparing to begin grouting,” said Mark Wright, vice president of CHPRC’s project technical services. “From procurement, to safety, to engineering, every aspect of our company has been involved in helping to make sure we are poised to do this safely and efficiently.”

Grout placement is expected to take between three and four months. RL has asked the Washington State Department of Ecology for authorization to begin placing grout in September due to the potential risk of collapse and to avoid coming winter weather that could impact operations.

The department is also working with the state on a requested change to the Hanford Site Dangerous Waste Permit that includes a public comment period from mid-August through September.

-Contributor: Destry Henderson

Savannah River National Laboratory Delivers Savings With 3D Printing

Savannah River National Laboratory replaced its $4,000 conventionally machined prototype design with this $50 3D-printed, two-piece polycarbonate flow assembly.

AIKEN, S.C. – When EM’s Savannah River National Laboratory redesigned its patented aerosol contamination extractor (ACE), it chose to use additive manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing, instead of conventional machining and delivered $1.2 million in savings.

The ACE is a portable air sampler that uses an electrostatic process to collect particles for analysis. The small size and portable nature of the ACE sampler makes it attractive for field use. However, due to the high cost of producing the original ACE design — more than $4,000 in machining for the critical flow assembly alone — the ACE was built and deployed only sparingly.

However, when a federal agency had a critical need for a large number of ACE samplers, SRNL used additive manufacturing to make the project possible within its budget. The lab redesigned the ACE, replacing the complex machined flow assembly with a two-piece, thermoplastic flow assembly for manufacture on one of the lab’s many 3D printing machines.

Using this approach, the new flow assembly part was reduced to a cost as low as $50. A test unit was made and met all performance goals, resulting in the delivery of 300 thermoplastic flow assemblies to meet the agency’s need.

Since SRNL began producing the ACE flow assemblies using the 3D printing process, ACE samplers have been used across the DOE complex, including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Hanford Site, and the Nevada National Security Site.

-Contributors: Sheryl Bush, Paul Erwin

Testing Underway to Advance Hanford Basin Cleanup

Jeff Akers, CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company engineering technician, reviews controls during testing of equipment to remove filters from the K West Reactor Basin at the Hanford Site.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Testing is underway on the next phase to remove a reactor fuel storage basin near the Columbia River on the Hanford Site.

In June, EM Richland Operations Office contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) began removing highly radioactive sludge from the water-filled K West Reactor spent fuel storage basin and pumping it into containers for safe storage away from the river. This transfer process should take about a year.

After workers remove the sludge, they will clear away the contaminated filters that once helped clean the water in the one-million-gallon basin during fuel removal operations. Crews are currently testing this process, using the same mockup facility for testing sludge removal equipment.

“Sludge removal, and eventual removal of the filters, are all key steps toward removing the water from the basin and demolishing the basin,” said Mark French, federal project director. “Testing this equipment in a clean environment is critical to ensuring the project’s success.”

Workers developed a mockup of the water filter in Hanford’s K West Reactor Basin that allows them to test filter removal equipment in a non-radiological facility to reduce project risk before deploying the equipment in the field.

To prepare for removing the filters, engineers designed a way to connect the sludge removal equipment to the tanks containing the filters, inject water into those tanks from the top, and pump out the contaminated filters from the bottom.

“We’re making sure the equipment operates as designed, as an integrated system, and is compatible with the sludge removal equipment to ensure safe removal of the filters,” said Eric Erpenbeck, CHPRC test facility manager. “This reduces project risk and improves safety because we know it will work before we deploy it in the basin.”

Once testing is complete, workers will train on the equipment in the test facility before they install equipment in the basin after sludge removal is complete in 2019.

-Contributor: Destry Henderson

Moab UMTRA Project's Lee Shenton Retires, New Liaison Begins Work

Current and former EM staff mark the last day of Lee Shenton at the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project. Shenton is at center.

MOAB, Utah – After nearly nine years, Grand County Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project Liaison Lee Shenton is retiring.

Project staff joined county employees on July 31 to wish Shenton well in his retirement.

“As the Moab UMTRA Project liaison, Lee maintained an objective voice helping communicate key project activities, and became a trusted person on the project and in the community,” Moab Federal Cleanup Director Russell McCallister said.

Since October 2009, Shenton served as an intermediary between the EM Moab UMTRA Project and Grand County. During that time he reviewed data, prepared reports for county government and the public, and succeeded in establishing positive relationships with project personnel and the Moab community. Shenton worked primarily at a county office, but would spend one day a week visiting EM’s Moab or Crescent Junction sites.

“It has been gratifying to serve my community for the last eight and a half years,” Shenton said. “The project team has been helpful and accommodating while our community has been engaged and very supportive of the project.”

Lee Shenton, left, accepts a certificate of appreciation from Moab Federal Cleanup Director Russell McCallister.

Left to right, Lee Shenton, Moab Federal Cleanup Director Russell McCallister, and new Grand County Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project Liaison Russ von Koch.

The liaison position is funded by the county and the project. In July, the county hired Russ von Koch to take over as liaison. Von Koch is familiar with the project after his work on a county effort to gather community input on possible uses of the Moab Site after remediation.

“I have really enjoyed learning about the Moab UMTRA Project while I was chair of Grand County’s Site Futures Committee,” said Von Koch. “I am looking forward to working with the team in my new role as Grand County’s UMTRA liaison.”

The project is relocating mill tailings from a former uranium-ore processing facility in Moab to an engineered disposal cell in Crescent Junction, Utah.

-Contributor: Honora Thompson

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